A Growing Oregon Loophole

Independent campaign expenditures here are soaring—and invisible.

An army of canvassers hit the streets in April and May to
rescue state Rep. Mike Schaufler (D-Happy Valley) from defeat. Many of
the workers knocking on doors for Schaufler in the May 15 primary were
paid to drum up votes for the five-term incumbent.

But who paid them at
first wasn’t clear: For many canvassers, there was no record of payment
in Schaufler’s campaign finance reports, or the political campaign
committees trying to help Schaufler. (His primary challenger, Jeff
Reardon, handily beat Schaufler by a 2-1 ratio.)

WW has figured out who bankrolled some of the canvassers—a pro-business group called Grow Oregon.

Grow Oregon and other
groups used a little-known loophole in the state’s campaign finance
disclosure rules that has kept hundreds of thousands of dollars in
recent political spending out of public view.

The state Elections
Division, under Secretary of State Kate Brown, could have fixed this
problem by making information about the spending easily available, but
has allowed spending reports to remain hidden.

Most political
spending is logged in the state’s online campaign finance reporting
system, ORESTAR. The database allows anyone to view campaign
contributions and expenditures for any race in Oregon.

But the state
Elections Division has allowed a whole class of spending, so-called
“independent expenditures,” to remain hidden from public view.

Rather than look up
information about such spending online, you have to go to Salem, to
Brown’s office, and ask to see the paper filings. They are kept out of
sight, in a black three-ring binder under a counter, where only a
handful of people know they’re located—or even exist.

“The political
players paying for these independent political campaign activities are
inappropriately flying under the radar screen,” says Janice Thompson of
the watchdog group Common Cause Oregon.

It’s there that WW
found Grow Oregon spent $9,946 on Schaufler’s behalf, much of it with
the Signature Gathering Company of Oregon, co-founded by lobbyist Mark
Nelson. Two other groups made independent expenditures totaling $6,000
for Schaufler, and a group called Progressive Kick spent $13,000 to
benefit Reardon.

Nationally,
independent expenditures have gotten a lot of coverage in the
presidential race, thanks to the Citizens United case. The U.S. Supreme
Court ruled that corporations and unions can contribute and spend
unlimited amounts of money on political campaigning, if their efforts
aren’t coordinated with candidates.

But federal races are
different from Oregon campaigns. Oregon is one of only four states that
do not limit campaign expenditures; federal campaigns do, and the
Citizens United case allows donors to skirt those limits as long as
their spending is “independent.”

State Elections
Director Steve Trout says independent expenditures were originally left
out of ORESTAR because they were rare and small. “Starting in 2010, we
began to see more and bigger contributions,” Trout says.

Trout says no one has made the lack of transparency an issue until Thompson and WW
raised questions. He says he hopes the Elections Division will start
posting electronic copies of independent expenditures in advance of the
November election, and his boss may ask the 2013 Legislature to update
ORESTAR.

There’s no reason the
Elections Division should continue to make it so difficult to track
these disclosures. And the three-ring binder kept hidden in Brown’s
office contains some eye-popping independent expenditures.

In 2010, the National
Rifle Association spent $102,000 on GOP gubernatorial candidate Chris
Dudley. The American Federation of Teachers spent $275,000 on his
opponent, now-Gov. John Kitzhaber, a Democrat. The Oregon League of
Conservation Voters spent $385,000 to help Bob Stacey, who ran
unsuccessfully for Metro president.

Grow Oregon enjoys additional secrecy. As WWfirst reported last year, Grow Oregon is not a PAC but a 501(c)(4)
nonprofit, which means it does not need to disclose the sources of its
funding.

Justin Delaney,
government affairs director for the Standard insurance company and a
spokesman for Grow Oregon, declined to comment on the group’s membership
or speculation that the group plans to spend up to $1 million in the
November election cycle.

People familiar with
the group say it has 30 to 40 members, including the Standard, Nike,
Schnitzer Steel, Columbia Sportswear, U.S. Bank, and the Oregon Business
Association.

Those sources say it
takes $25,000 to get a seat at the Grow Oregon table. Two business
groups required to report their political spending, Associated General
Contractors and Associated Oregon Industries, each gave $25,000 to Grow
Oregon in January.

Common Cause’s Thompson says a fix is overdue: “Evaluating campaign messages from independent political players, especially in comparison to messages directly from candidates, requires knowing who is paying the bill.”

"In the low usage areas, we found that our vehicles sit idle four times longer, ultimately affecting overall vehicle availability for the Portland membership base, as well as parking for the Portland community."

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